The Ancestral Burden of Being a Detroit Lions Fan

This is what you’re really passing on to the next generation: good old-fashioned suffering, yes, but also loyalty, dedication, spirit. And, surprisingly, joy!

Photograph by Walter Iooss Jr. / Sports Illustrated / Getty

The other day, in the park, my son was sporting his little Detroit Lions
winter hat with a pompom on it when a man wearing a Jets jersey turned
to me, nodded at my boy, and said, “Lions, huh? Poor kid. My dad did the
same thing to me with the Jets: got me hooked early on a losing team.” I
laughed and said, “Yeah, my dad’s to blame, too.” It’s a fine fatherly
tradition, passing your favorite teams down to your children, but it’s
not always the nicest thing to do, especially if one of those teams is
the Detroit Lions, who haven’t won a championship since 1957—yes, sixty
years—and, in all that time, have emerged victorious in only one playoff
game. Generally, as a father, you do everything in your power to keep
your child from suffering: Why would you willingly impart your love for
a team like the Lions, who seem bound, above all, to break your heart?

When it came to my dad’s passion for Detroit he never had a choice, and
neither, really, did I—after all, he himself had played for them,
joining the squad as “last-string quarterback” to write about the
experience in what would become the book “Paper Lion.” My sisters and I
never had much of a choice with any of our other teams, either—whomever
my dad had played for and written about, they were it—and, as a result
of his participatory adventures, George Plimpton basically had all the
sports covered: hockey with the Boston Bruins, basketball with the
Celtics. (With baseball, it was the Mets, not because my dad had pitched
for them but because he had invented someone who had: Sidd Finch, the
Buddhist monk and French-horn enthusiast who could throw the ball 168
m.p.h.) It was always thrilling to huddle with my dad in front of the TV
in his cluttered office and see the Celtics win a championship, or the
Bruins, but somehow it was his team that never seemed to win—“those poor
old Lions,” as my father referred to them—that bonded us closest
together. In part, I’m sure, it was all those Thanksgiving games: the
great relief of excusing ourselves from dry turkey and stuffy
conversation to relax for a moment together and watch our favorite team
do battle, even if the chances were strong that our team was losing that
battle badly.

My dad would have been crushed, of course, if I had chosen to follow a
ball club other than one of his own, but, like any good father, he would
have supported it. In fact, he had already experienced such betrayal
when he took my older sister to a Harvard-Yale game, with nine-year-old
Medora deciding that she liked the color blue better, and thus that it
was Yale that she would root for rather than for his own Crimson alma
mater. More recently, a neighbor of mine who is a fellow diehard Lions
fan told me that his young son’s favorite team was now Detroit’s bitter
rival, Green Bay, and that every Sunday his boy donned an Aaron Rodgers
jersey gleefully. There may come a time like that in the not-too-distant
future for me and my son, too, but for now he remains a Lions fan. (Not
like he has much choice in the matter, though: he’s only a little over
two, and his mother and I still dress him.)

But I guess the question is, should it fill me with pride, seeing my
little guy in Honolulu blue, or guilt? Would it be better fathering, for
instance, to simply abandon my old, fruitless loyalties, and become a
fan of the Patriots (who look like they’re headed for seventeen straight
winning seasons) or the Dallas Cowboys—you know, for the child’s sake?
I’m not so sure. Because there’s something honorable about committing
one’s self to a hapless team. It “builds
character,” which parents like to think is important for a child. Indeed, devotedly watching the Lions compete—especially the
last few years, when so many games have come down to the wire—can be a
near-physical activity: your whole body tenses up, you let out groans,
grunts, and occasional birdlike cries of delight. At the end of a game,
you emerge battered and bruised, wiry and strong-hearted. And this is
what you’re really passing on to the next generation: good old-fashioned
suffering, yes, but also loyalty, dedication, spirit. And, surprisingly,
joy! It’s great fun being a Lions fan, especially if you have a sense of
humor about it, which you have to.

On the flipside, there are the neuroses—never a good thing to pass on to
your kids. As a Lions fan, there are times one cannot help but to wonder
the absurd thought: Is it somehow my fault? If I hadn’t dared to hope,
to let belief take hold in my guarded heart, might they not have blown
that huge lead against Dallas in the playoffs a few years ago? And then
there was that great 6–2 start to a season back in 2007: If I hadn’t
been bold enough to purchase that baby-blue reversible windbreaker to
exhibit that strangest of sensations for a Lions fan—pride—might their
success have continued? (As it was, buying that damn jacket was a jinx
of epic proportions: they lost six in a row, won one, and then went on
to lose nineteen straight, a slump that included an 0–16 season, the
worst in N.F.L. history.) I have considered the possibility that if I
didn’t care about the Lions at all, and never watched them, they would
never lose.

Of course, even the Lions win sometimes. And, when they do, the
victories feel monumental, miraculous. Last year, nearly every win
actually was a miracle—indeed, Detroit broke an N.F.L. record with eight
fourth-quarter comebacks. Trailing with the clock ticking down, Matthew
Stafford (now the highest-paid quarterback in the league) would drive
the ball downfield with heroic calm and somehow perform the implausible
once again. “Finding ways to win is what we do,” Stafford said. For fans
of a team that has built its reputation on discovering new and inventive
ways to lose, this fresh attitude has been nice to see.

Sort of. Because it hasn’t really made watching the Lions any easier.
Since they’ve become a “winning” team, the games have become even
more excruciating, somehow—after all, now we have something to lose.
Part of it, perhaps, is simply that this is unfamiliar territory for
Lions fans: we’re much more at ease with disappointment and defeat.
Victory unnerves us—we’re always waiting for the other cleat to drop.
And sure, loss was never the most savory dish for us to stomach, on
Thanksgiving or any other day, but at least we could depend on it. Now,
it seems, we can’t depend on anything—winning, losing, nothing is
certain anymore—which is, I suppose, as it should be.

And I guess that’s my point: when the Detroit Lions are on the
field—today, they play the red-hot Minnesota Vikings—you keep your eyes
glued to the action till the very last second. You never know when the
Lions will blow a lead, or retake one, tragically, miraculously. Missed
extra points, blocked field goals, Hail Mary passes, game-winning
touchdowns with sixteen seconds on the clock. So this also is what gets
passed down along with the Lions: the thrill of sport, and of life,
where there are no guarantees, anything can happen, and there is always
room for hope. It’s good for a child to know that.

Of course, right now, my son knows none of this. While I sit on the edge
of my couch, watching the Lions compete, he spends most of his time on
the floor, playing with his trucks. He does check in on the action every
now and then, though, especially when he hears me shout, “No-o-o-o-o-o!!!” as
Lions fans are wont to do. Or, like a few weeks ago, when I shouted
“Touchdown!” and threw my arms in the air, and he did the same, throwing
his little hands way up above his head with a grin of delight, as if he
understood in his bones that something unexpected and remarkable had
occurred: an opportunity to celebrate with a fellow Lions fan.

Video

Kid Inventors Tell All

Students between the ages of six and twelve offer sage advice at the National Invention Convention on solving real-world problems, big and small. Behold: the Blackberry Picker, Storibot, and the ChemotheraPop.